I linked the article but it didn't sit quite right. Some statistics not mentioned in the article: miles driven per capita.

Fatalities per mile.

The seat belt thing is dumb, no doubt; my grandmother refused to wear one until she put herself in the hospital for two months and while I've never taken a driver's test in another country I know the one I took involved driving around the block and parking. This in a city where the nearest Taco Bell was half an hour's drive at 60mph on what has long been considered one of the two most dangerous roads in the US. And while there's no easy way to compare "distance to nearest bar by country" I reckon you've got less travel ahead of you if you're blitzed in Mannheim than if you're blitzed in Montana.

I don't know if France lowers the speed limits when they need to make more revenue from speeding tickets. I know Texas does. I know New Mexico does. I know Arizona does. Is it entitlement to drive the speed the road was designed for, rather than the speed designed to frustrate you into getting a ticket? 'cuz growing up, the state Attorney General called a press conference with all three networks in attendance to announce to the fine folx of New Mexico that if a tribal cop tried to pull them over for speeding, they were to keep truckin' along because the tribe had no authority over white people and they were doing shit like knocking the speed limits down from 65 to 35 (on roads they didn't own).

Know what drove piracy up? The rise in album prices from $9.99 (where the'd been from '78 to '90) to $17.99. Know what drove piracy down? iTunes setting album prices at $9.99. Capital tried to propose that back when people were still buying CDs. They were threatened with a lawsuit by the RIAA. Two years later, Tower Records went out of business... and marked their CDs down all the way to $12.99. How much is Spotify? $9.99 a month. how much is iTunes? $9.99 a month. How much is Pandora Premium? $9.99 a month. How much is Google Music? $9.99 a month. It's almost as if the public decided what they were willing to pay for music, and the music industry survived so long as they abided by the public's appetite. As soon as they stepped out of line they invited the existence of Napster.

It's like Blockbuster - 16% of their revenue was late fees. Their entire structure was arranged in making you pay more than you expected. What's Redbox's late fee structure? $1.50 a day until you bought the damn thing for $25 at which point, keep it. Redbox is dandy. Blockbuster is dead. What's Netflix's late fee schedule, by the way? No new discs until we have your old ones. How much is Netflix? $8.99 a month.

In summary, I have a hard time blaming the downfall of Western civilization on our decision to flaunt the speed limit. I also have a hard time blaming Americans for the fact that we die in cars a lot more than the French. We do everything in cars a lot more than the French so of course that includes dying.